Do Apartments Really Do Background Checks? (lease, renter, deposits, legal)

[rlrl]

always stay on one's record. The source of the conviction is the filing at the courthouse. if the landlord goes to the court to pull the record then the record will always be there for them to get

if a reporting company goes to the court, the court will provide the company with the record. however the company then has to comply with either state FCRA or Federal FCRA rules as far as reporting convictions. so if the prevailing state laws mandate that such record cannot be reported past 7 or 10 years, the company cannot report it

I think California has such reporting restrictions for convictions

[Jane72]

Originally Posted by Texas User

Do they? Are they approving people with Misdeamenors or Felonies?

Nice apartment complexes do.
My husband- I hadn't met him yet, of course- has a violent felony from when he was 17 (they tried him as an adult).
It's agg. assault.
The thing is, it was actually a schoolyard brawl between him and his friend.
They got in a fight over a girl. Afterward, the friend went home, leaving his skateboard in the parking lot of the school. So my husband took the skateboard home, so that nobody would steal it and he could give it back to his friend later.

Well, that night after seeing him with a black eye, etc, the friend's parents called the police and had my husband arrested. Because he had taken the skateboard too, it was considered assault in the commission of another crime (theft), thus aggravated assault.

Unbelievable that they tried him on such a trumped-up charge, and tried him as an adult; I know the so-called "victim" of the crime; he and my husband were friends again after the "assault", and still friends even when I met my husband several years later.

Admittedly, my husband already had a long history of juvenile delinquency by the time they threw the book at him for this assault. He was an awful kid. He came from a sad and terrible background.
The amazing thing is how much he's made of himself since that time.

But yes, his "violent felony" makes it difficult for us to get into many apartment complexes, despite the fact that it was twenty years ago when he was 17, and he has not been in trouble since.

I do understand; nobody wants to live around a violent felon, any more than they want to live around a registered sex offender.

[Texas User]

Originally Posted by Jane72

Nice apartment complexes do.
My husband- I hadn't met him yet, of course- has a violent felony from when he was 17 (they tried him as an adult).
It's agg. assault.
The thing is, it was actually a schoolyard brawl between him and his friend.
They got in a fight over a girl. Afterward, the friend went home, leaving his skateboard in the parking lot of the school. So my husband took the skateboard home, so that nobody would steal it and he could give it back to his friend later.

Well, that night after seeing him with a black eye, etc, the friend's parents called the police and had my husband arrested. Because he had taken the skateboard too, it was considered assault in the commission of another crime (theft), thus aggravated assault.

Unbelievable that they tried him on such a trumped-up charge, and tried him as an adult; I know the so-called "victim" of the crime; he and my husband were friends again after the "assault", and still friends even when I met my husband several years later.

Admittedly, my husband already had a long history of juvenile delinquency by the time they threw the book at him for this assault. He was an awful kid. He came from a sad and terrible background.
The amazing thing is how much he's made of himself since that time.

But yes, his "violent felony" makes it difficult for us to get into many apartment complexes, despite the fact that it was twenty years ago when he was 17, and he has not been in trouble since.

I do understand; nobody wants to live around a violent felon, any more than they want to live around a registered sex offender.

Get a lawyer because he was 17. They may be able to remove it?

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by Texas User

Do they? Are they approving people with Misdeamenors or Felonies?

I guess you are asking because you have one on your record...Well I'm a LL and do check backgrounds and the person with the best credentials, will have a chance to rent my property.

[Texas User]

Originally Posted by bentlebee

I guess you are asking because you have one on your record...Well I'm a LL and do check backgrounds and the person with the best credentials, will have a chance to rent my property.

No I don't. Just curious. I am asking because the apartment I live in currently has police almost everyday and someone is getting arrested.

[Jane72]

Originally Posted by Texas User

Get a lawyer because he was 17. They may be able to remove it?

Possibly.
But it's not that big a deal, and we're pretty poor.
It's not what I'd choose to blow money on.
My husband has a stable job that he's had for six years, and we've been in our current apartment, which is pretty nice, for about four years now.
So we're afloat, we're doing okay.
We don't have money to spend on a lawyer to (possibly) fix something that isn't hurting us anyway at the moment.

I was just saying it had hurt us in the past (and may again someday; who knows?)
Twice, we have been kept out of apartment complexes we wanted to move into. And I don't know how many jobs my husband's been turned down for because of his criminal history, but I imagine it's a few.

I guess since we're doing okay at the moment, it's just something I'd rather ignore.

[Sam82]

My LL did not do a background check. Actually, it seems that they are kind of laid back as long as you have good credit.

[offgridmontana]

Why pay rent when you could buy property in the country? I hate this big city game.

[Texas User]

Originally Posted by offgridmontana

Why pay rent when you could buy property in the country? I hate this big city game.

What about work commute? Other activities?

[bentlebee]

Some people rent in other peoples name, and later they move in...they are felons and try to avoid being denied to live there...Than the trouble starts and the police comes over and over.

Thanks to the people who are allowing felons to live with them and try to avoid havin them listed as official tenants, you are living the way you are....